Medical Volunteer Interview: How Lucy’s flying eye hospital trip to Rwanda inspired people to love their eyes

Across Rwanda, preventable blindness remains a major challenge. With around only 30 eye doctors serving a population of more than 14 million, access to quality eye care in Rwanda is still severely limited, especially for people in rural communities. By comparison, the UK has around 3,500 ophthalmologists for 67 million people, showing just how stark the gap in access to eye care truly is. Cataracts continue to be the leading cause of blindness, while many others live with vision loss that could be treated or prevented with the right care, training, and equipment.

That’s why Orbis’s work in Rwanda is so vital. Through partnerships with local hospitals, advanced tools like Cybersight AI, and the Flying Eye Hospital’s state-of-the-art training programmes, Orbis is helping to build stronger, more sustainable eye care systems, ensuring more people can access the sight-saving care they deserve.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got involved with Orbis?

My name is Lucy Barker, and I’m a Consultant Paediatric Manager at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. I’m here in Rwanda on my very first trip with Orbis, an experience I’ve wanted to be part of for a long time. Many of my mentors during training were Orbis volunteers, and hearing their stories inspired me. They gave me so much during my own training, and I wanted to pass that forward to others.

Q: What have you been doing during your time in Rwanda? 

This week, we’ve been focusing on strabismus (squint) surgery training. We’ve seen children with large squints and abnormal eye movements, which affect both their sight and confidence. I’ve been working alongside local doctors, teaching them how to examine and assess patients, select who needs surgery, and perform the operations themselves.

Earlier today, for example, we operated on a six-year-old boy. I did one eye and guided a local doctor through the other. Seeing him complete the surgery successfully was fantastic and knowing that this child’s quality of life will improve because of it is what makes this work so meaningful.

Q: Why is this training so important? 

Surgical education is one of the most valuable gifts we can give. By sharing skills and confidence, we help local doctors carry on providing care long after the Flying Eye Hospital leaves. Over the week, we’ve seen 21 patients together, and I’ve watched the doctors grow in both skill and independence.

Q: What’s next for the programme? 

The next few days we’ll move from the Flying Eye Hospital to a local hospital, a more familiar setting for the doctors. This helps them embed what they’ve learned into their everyday practice. There’ll be more strabismus surgeries, more children helped, and hopefully, many more positive results.

Q: How has this experience affected you personally? 

Training doctors who have not done much surgery has made me a better teacher as you are teaching real skill. I’ll carry those lessons back to my work at home.

I'm doing incredible work all over the world, just being here and seeing the effect that can have, and this is a small part of what Orbis does. It’s been an incredible week, Orbis is such an inspirational organisation.